Oh Great and Powerful Pickle, please help me avoid gummy pie crust. For my pumpkin pie, I'd like to try blind baking my pie crust and then filling it with a pumpkin custard that has been mostly cooked on the stove top. I find the standard method of using an unbaked crust often yields a gummy crust under the filling. Has anyone tried this or do you have suggestions for how to do this? I'm thinking maybe I can cook the custard on the stove top and then transfer to the pie crust and finish in the oven for 25 mins or so.

By pumpkin custard do you mean like as in a cream pie? Where the filling is cooked on the stove top and the poured into a baked pie shell? You'll need to be able to thicken the filling up enough. Martha Stewart has a recipe that works really well http://www.marthastewart.... As for the traditional pumpkin pie (which is a custard pie), don't overwork your pastry when you make it, be sure the pastry doesn't have any tears in it, don't over fill it, and carefully pour the filling into the unbaked shell through a sieve, very, very slowly. This always works for my custard pies. Good Luck!

Thanks SweetTea. I'm not doing a cream pie, although that sounds pretty yummy. I'm frustrated by how the typical pumpkin pie is in the oven so long (about an hour) that the edges get burned and the part under the filling doesn't get flaky. I always want to scrape the filling out and leave the crust behind...

"Blind bake" the crust at 350 degrees F (lined with parchment, filled with dried beans) for 15 minutes. Remove the parchment and beans and brush with a little beaten egg. Return the pie shell to the oven to bake for about 5 or 6 more minutes, until the pastry looks dry. The egg serves as a barrier. You may want to bake it a little longer before you add the filling, since a well baked crust takes about 45 to 60 minutes. Not sure how long your pie filling will take, but the above method should help; you can adjust the blind baking time to accommodate the filling . If the crust browns too fast, cover it loosely with some strips of foil. Happy Thanksgiving!